


crow boy

by caryophyllaceae (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blind!John, CURSE YOU TUMBLR, Dancing, Dave is a dork, Dorks in Love, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Singing, also, awkward dates that turn out okay after all, g except for some swearing here and there, i hate it when people make dave all cool, i saw some stuff on tumblr about crows, john has pet crows, like???, no?, teeth-rotting fluff to be exact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 02:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7555996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/caryophyllaceae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>❝and it's like looking down the barrel of a gun<br/>and it goes off<br/>and out come all these words❞</p><p>;;</p><p>You're well aware that the song you're singing to this boy isn't all-that romantic, but dammit, you're trying! Dating is hard, okay? Especially when the boy you like has: a witch as a best friend, a sister who could shoot you in the head from a mile away, and a flock of crows as pets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	crow boy

**Author's Note:**

> a tumblr anon said that i write too much sad stuff. alright, anon, since you think that...
> 
> here's some pure, fluffy fluff, complete with johndave kisses and awkward first dates. i hope it satisfies you. <3

Wow, are you fucked.

You landed yourself in detention for talking back to your snotty teacher, Mr.Ampora, even though he totally deserved it. But he has a stick up his ass that can’t be removed, so instead of becoming a hero for finally giving him what he deserved you got detention. Dirk is going to be so pissed when you leave school an hour late, which is your first problem. Your second problem is that the only people here other than you are Rose Lalonde, your really creepy cousin who you barely ever talk to, and the kid she’s pretty much best friends with, resident blind boy, John Egbert. He’s cute, and you might ask him out, if you weren’t absolutely terrified of three things: Rose, his sister Jade who is a perfect markswoman, and the fact that the boy has pet crows.

No, you aren’t joking. You are being totally and completely honest here. You were only over to his house one time, when you had to work on a school project with him. He lives with his older sister Jane who tried to give you a whole plate of cookies to take home because his dad died when he was like, ten (you think) which was okay, you guess. But then you got to his room, which was pretty fucking big, and the place was filled with crows. There had to be at least twenty, if not more. He turned and smiled sweetly, then he said, “These are my crows. I hope they’ll like you.”

So yeah, John Egbert is really cute, but you are not fucking with him. Reason being: he has the ever-creepy, probably-a-witch, Rose Lalonde, he has his sister, Jade Harley, who could probably shoot you in the head from a mile away, and he has a flock of crows who would probably claw your eyes out if you fucked with him. You know he has full control over the crows because one of them started getting kind of rambunctious when you sat near it, and all John said was, “Hey, calm down,” and the crow stopped flapping his wings and whatever-the-hell else he was doing. Point being, it creeped you the fuck out.

Rose clears her throat and turns to look back at you. “Is there any reason you’re looking at myself and John, David?” She asks. She knows you hate it when she calls you David and you know she knows that you do because there’s a smirk on her face.

You clear your throat back, all know-it-all and shit, and then you respond. “You wish I was lookin’ at you, Lalonde. All haughty and in your glory ‘n shit.”

“Yeah, okay, but I don’t really wish you were looking at me.” John chimes in.

You want to reply back with something like, “yeah, but you can’t even tell if I am” but you know better than that. Rose would not hesitate to snap your neck if you said anything like that to him, and you know that for a fact. She’s weirdly protective of him. Then again, so are his two sisters, so who are you to judge. “Sorry, Egbert.” You say, clearing your throat. John turns around in his chair and gives you a smile, and you have to shut your eyes and take a breath. So maybe you have a crush on John, what of it? It doesn’t even matter because he wouldn’t like you back, anyway.

“Hey, are you doing anything Friday night?”

...then again.

You are very ready to say something like, “I need to check my schedule, it might be filled up” but judging by the look on Rose’s face you shouldn’t say anything like that. By the look on her face, you should probably just give him a nice, sweet response. “Sure am. You askin’ me on a date?”

John blushes in the cutest way, and you think you can overlook that he has a flock of crows as pets, a witch for a best friend, and a sister who can hit a target with a gun with her eyes closed. “I guess, kinda? Is that okay?”

You smirk, even though he can’t see it so that kind of defeats the purpose, you guess. “Perfectly fine. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

You know you weren’t the one who asked for a date, but you don’t care. You are the master of chivalry, and you really have to be, because if you don’t you’re going to have your eyes pecked out, a bullet in your head, and a curse set upon your family for generations to come.

 

* * *

 

Friday night rolls around too soon. _Way_ too soon. You’re standing in front of your mirror at six p.m., fussing with your outfit even though you’re only wearing jeans and a t-shirt. You’re blabbing off about random things, if you’re too dressed down or if your hair looks bad, and Dirk is sighing and telling you to calm down a little bit. You tell him that you can’t calm down and you bet he rolls his eyes beneath his shades, and then he’s rushing you out of the door and telling you that the first step to a good date is being there on time.

You don’t live very far from John, though, so you get there way too early. You ring the doorbell once and even though everything in you tells you to ring it again because you’re impatient as fuck, you try your best to wait patiently. You’re only waiting for about a minute before the door is pulled open, and standing before you is Rose Lalonde. You’re ready to ask her what the hell she’s doing here, but instead you say nothing. She gives you a condescending little smirk and steps aside, ushering you in. “Welcome, David.”

You step inside and try your best not to flip her off. She shuts the door behind you and leads you over to the sofa. John’s house is fucking huge, kind of like a mansion. You wonder, idly, if it was left to him by a distant relative or something like that. Once you’re sitting down, Rose takes a seat on the chair across from you, and picks up...knitting...needles? You’re pretty sure they’re knitting needles. You never took Rose Lalonde for the kind to knit, but hey. To each his own, you guess. Sitting on the sofa next to the one you’re on are Jade Harley and Jane Crocker, John’s notoriously protective big sisters. You shift in your seat nervously because they’re both staring you down and it’s freaking you the fuck out.

“So,” Jade starts. Jane is still looking at you. It’s almost intimidating. “What do you plan on doing with our little brother?”

“Umm…” you try, and obviously that isn’t the response they were looking for because you get dual glares from them both. “Uh, okay. I was gonna take him to the movies? ‘Cause, he likes movies, right? Rose said that he likes movies.”

Jane and Jade share a glance. You swallow the lump in your throat. “Alright, that’s acceptable. He does love movies, indeed.” Jane speaks up after a minute of her having a conversation with Jade through nothing but eye contact. You breathe a sigh of relief, and Jade laughs and stands, and then punches you in the arm. You cringe but try to pretend it didn’t hurt, even though it really, really fucking hurt. You wonder if Jade is aware of how strong she really is.

“Don’t look so tense, Dave! We aren’t going to murder you, or anything.”

“Unless you do something to upset John, then we may.” Rose pipes up.

Jade laughs. “Yeah, I guess that’s pretty acceptable!”

Case in point why you don’t want to fuck with John Egbert. Also case in point why no one else fucks with John Egbert. Everyone knows that he kind of has this impenetrable forcefield built up by Rose, Jade, and Jane. Not everyone knows that he has a flock of crows as pets, but that would probably only add to their fear of him.

You sit in silence with the three girls for about ten minutes before John comes downstairs. You thank your lucky stars that he isn’t dressed up, either, and then it hits you: it doesn’t matter, because he’s blind. Fuck, you are so dumb. The next thing you notice is that sitting on John’s shoulder is a crow. You’re kind of impressed that he could even train crows to be calm enough to just sit on his shoulder like that instead of flying around and pecking people’s eyes out.

“Find Dave,” he says, and you’re about to spit out a, _what the fuck?_ until the crow flies off of his shoulder and onto yours, then caws once, right in your ear. Rose starts laughing at the look on your face, that bitch. Jade and Jane are trying to stifle snickers themselves. John walks over to you, perfectly calm, and says, “Thank you, Rose. Back on my shoulder.”

The crow flies off of your shoulder and onto John’s. “You named the crow Rose?” You ask, because it’s the safest thing you can.

“Of course! All of my crows are named after my friends and family.”

“Okay, so do you have one named after me then?” You ask next. You tell yourself that you’ll be creeped out if he says yes, but that’s totally a lie. You’d probably be happy if he said yes. You wonder if that’s weird, being happy that a blind boy has a crow named after you.

John gives you a laugh in return, grabs your hand to pull you up from the sofa, and says, “Of course I do, Dave! We’re friends, aren’t we?”

You nod dumbly because you’re too stunned to give a response for two reasons: one, because he has a crow named after you and he called you _friends_ , and two, because he’s still holding your hand. Rose is laughing at you again. “Yep, yeah, mhm. We sure are.”

John laughs again and tells you that you’re silly, and you realize that you have never wanted to kiss anyone more than you want to kiss him right now. You don’t, though, because you don’t want to scare him off and also because the three very protective women in his life are sitting right there in front of you guys. “Don’t wait up!” He calls, and he gets three callbacks of, “don’t be too late, we love you!” and they’re in-sync, which creeps you out more than the crow thing. John is still holding your hand, but you step in front of him so you can lead him to your car. You open the door for him like the gentleman you are, and he looks right at you even though he can’t see and gives you a smile. His eyes are kind-of blue, but they’re mostly white.

You buckle him in and he laughs as you do, says, “Dave, I might be blind, but I can still buckle myself! Thank you, though.”

You tell him, “you’re welcome,” and try not to be freaked out by the fact that his pet crow is staring you down, just like Jade and Jane had. You shut the door and walk around the other side of the car, climbing inside. You’re kind of glad that you have a date that can’t see, because Dirk’s car is the most awful shade of orange and you hate that you have to drive it because you don’t have enough money from your part-time job at Mcdonalds to get your own yet.

“Where are we going?” He asks, and you think that’s a pretty reasonable question. You were planning on taking him to the movies, it was what Jane and Jade had approved of, but you realize that he’s blind and you’d probably have to explain the movie to him. “I bet you were going to take me to the movies, huh? Word about me gets around really fast, for some reason or the other! But anyway, you shouldn’t, because it always annoys people when someone has to sit there and explain the movie to me since I can’t see what’s happening.”

“I’m taking you to that drive-in place, Sonic, so I can sing to you beneath the stars,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself, and what the fuck, where did that even come from? You can’t even sing, because you mostly listen to rap aside from the band Arctic Monkeys, and you aren’t sure how much John would appreciate you singing him one of their songs. But now you’ve said it, and there’s no taking it back, so you have to say, “Yeah, okay. I guess that’s what we’re doing.”

You can see John’s smile even though it’s pretty dark in the car. “That sounds great. I bet you have a really good singing voice, your talking voice is pretty nice.”

Okay, cool, so you guess that’s a compliment from someone who’s blind. You thank him for the compliment and tell him that his face is pretty nice, and then you realize that it sounds ridiculous but John laughs so you guess that it’s okay. You don’t dare turn the music on in the car because Dirk listens to fucking K-Pop and shit like that, but the nearest Sonic in your town is a few miles away so it gets kind of quiet after a while. John asks if you can put music on, and like you’re hardwired to say yes to the kid, you agree.

You take a breath and turn the radio on. You take it as a blessing when instead of being greeted by K-Pop, you’re greeted by Fall Out Boy. Yeah, you were kind of stretching it a little bit when you thought that all Dirk listened to was K-Pop. His music taste isn’t all bad, you guess. John is smiling pretty widely, so you guess he must like Fall Out Boy? Shit do you hope so, because you don’t have room to fuck this up right now.

You pull up at the Sonic after about twenty more minutes, and you thank whatever higher deity that’s looking over you for not letting any K-Pop come on, since it was Dirk’s mix of music. You pull into a spot and roll the window down, then you turn to ask John what he wants before you press the button. He asks for a cheeseburger and fries. You order for yourself and him and then you pull your wallet out and _fuck_ \- you’re a dollar short.

You’re searching around for another dollar when someone knocks on the window. You shoot back up in your seat and again have to thank the higher deity looking over you that it’s one of your best friends, Aradia Megido. “I’m a dollar short,” you mouth to her, because for some reason the two of you are amazing at reading lips. “Pay you back?”

Aradia smiles, taking the money from your hand and handing you the food. She mouths back, “No charge. The kid’s cute and I’m proud of you for finally working up the courage to ask him on a date.” Then she rollerskates away from the car, and you’re reminded of the fact that whenever the two of you go out skating together she’s always way faster than you are.

“Food’s here.” You say, opening the bag and setting John’s food in his outstretched hands. You eat silently, but you watch John the entire time. He eats all of the burger by himself, but when he gets to the fries he eats one, then gives one to the crow, then eats one, and so on. He finishes eating before you, but you’re pretty sure it’s because he had a lot less food than you. Once you’re done eating, John clears his throat loudly.

“So, since you’ve gotten your fill of staring at me,” he says, and fuck, you had not really been expecting that. He’s blind, so like...he shouldn’t be able to tell, right? John Egbert must be a wizard, or something like that. You wouldn’t be surprised, with the people he knows. “But I was promised a song, and I’d really like to hear it.”

You have no idea what song to sing, and before you even have time to think, you’re blurting out the lyrics, “[Now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcBfg4NmqzA) then, Mardy Bum,” and pausing because, is this seriously the song you’re going to sing to him? Is it really? Do you have to?

But John smiles and says, “Go on,” and you know you’re fucked anyway, so you keep going.

“I see your frown, and it’s like looking down the barrel of a gun, and it goes off,” okay, you’re kind of freaking out inside right now, but John is still smiling and so you keep going even though you _really_ ‘ought to stop, since this song is kind-of romantic but not really; fuck, why couldn’t you have just sang him _I Wanna Be Yours_ and be done with it? “And out come all these words, oh, there’s a very pleasant side to you, a side I much prefer.”

Make your move, Strider. Make it now. You open the car door and pretty much run to get to the other side. You open the car door, wait for John to unbuckle himself, and then you pull him outside with you. Then you try your best to get in the right position for dancing (you _knew_ you should’ve taken those dance classes with Dirk) and then you’re in close quarters with his crow but you’re also dancing in a Sonic parking lot at eight p.m. on a Friday. You can see Aradia smiling from a window inside of the little building where you guess they cook the food. “It’s one that laughs and jokes around, remember cuddles in the kitchen, yeah, to get things off the ground, and it was up, up and away,” you take a pause to spin John around, and he gives a sweet laugh. “Oh, but it’s right hard to remember that on a day like today, when you’re all argumentative, and you’ve got the face on.”

“Well, now then Mardy Bum; oh, I’m in trouble again, aren’t I? I thought as much, ‘cause you turned over there, pulling that silent disappointment face, the one that I can’t bare,” yeah, okay, this song is sort-of-kind-of romantic but not really, but you can’t say you care about that since John is: a) still dancing with you and b) giggling into your shoulder. “Can’t we laugh and joke around? Remember cuddles in the kitchen, yeah, to get things off the ground, and it was up, up and away - oh, but it’s right hard to remember that on a day like this, when you’re all argumentative, and you’ve got the face on.”

John snorts against your chest. It’s only now that you notice that he’s about a foot shorter than you. Man, he missed the puberty train, huh? “Keep going, keep going! This song is a little bit romantic and it’s really cute the way you sing it. I don’t know who it is, but don’t stop. You’re such a dork and I want you to finish it for me!”

You nod and tell him that you plan on it. “Yeah, I’m sorry I was late; well, I missed the train, and then the traffic was a state, and I can’t be arsed to carry on this debate that reoccurs, oh, when you say I don’t care - well of course I do, yeah, I clearly do!”

Alright, you got this. You’re totally going to dip him at the end of the song and then pull him back up and kiss him, all suave-like. Dirk would be proud. “So laugh and joke around, remember cuddles in the kitchen, yeah, to get things off the ground, and it was up, up and away,” you pause and ready yourself to dip the boy. You’ve got this in the bag. “Still, it’s right hard to remember that on a day like today, when you’re all argumentative, and you’ve got the face on.”

You do it. You dip the boy. It doesn’t work out quite as well as you’d anticipated, though, because he ends up falling to the ground and you follow, landing on top of him. Your face is inches from his and the crow is standing right by his head, which is way too close to you. You kind of just suspend yourself where you are, face inches from John’s. You would bet he can feel your breath wash over his face, and when he smiles, you wonder what he’s going to say or what exactly he’s got planned. John may be blind, but word gets around school that he’s a fabulous prankster. “Rose, can you say, ‘just kiss me already’?”

You look to the crow, who caws out, “Just kiss me already,” and you’re too stunned to do anything more than stare. But you hear a laugh, and then John is pulling you down by the front of your shirt and his lips are on yours. Holy shit, you’re kissing John Egbert! It’s happening for you, today is the best day of your life.

He pulls away first, but he keeps his forehead against yours. “Rose, can you say, ‘ask me out’?”

Rose the crow caws, “Ask me out.”

You proceed to ask the crow out, and John punches you in the arm, but he laughs when he does it so that makes it okay with you. “Alright, alright,” you’re chuckling yourself, and you can’t believe how much this boy gets under your skin. “John Egbert, will you go out with me?”

He giggles somewhat, and then says, “Of course, you dummy! Kiss me again.”

You kiss him again, and Rose the crow starts repeating the song you’d just sang back to you in the form of caws. John laughs against your lips, but he keeps kissing you, so you guess it’s cool.

**Author's Note:**

> lmao, the song dave sings is "mardy bum" by arctic monkeys. i guess you'd know that if you clicked the link to it in the story, but if you didn't, there you go. the lyrics in the description are also from that song. "i wanna be yours," the song dave mentions, is also arctic monkeys. can you tell i'm kind of into them right now?
> 
> i hope somebody enjoyed this, ha ha. i like angst a lot more but mr. or mrs.anon thought i wrote too much angst, so here's some happy, fluffy stuff, to sate everyone's sweet tooth. :)
> 
> thanks for reading! (and by the way, if you left me a comment and you haven't gotten an answer yet, i'll be answering comments this weekend).


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